


Connect The Dots

by intoapuddle



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Nostalgia, Slice of Life, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-14 16:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18951502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoapuddle/pseuds/intoapuddle
Summary: It's been years since they first met, and Phil still works out little white lies Dan told to impress him at the start of their relationship.





	Connect The Dots

Phil feels jittery as he runs down the stairs, laptop still balanced on his forearm, spilling over with excitement. He hears a noise from the lounge, a confused “ _Phil?_ ”, but Dan doesn’t bother to get up.

He doesn’t have to, because Phil makes his way there in no time.

“Did you just run down the stairs?”

Dan is in his sweatpants and a hoodie, hair a mess, controller clutched tight in two sweaty hands. He pauses the game to keep looking at Phil with a bewildered expression.

Phil grins, plopping down comfortably beside Dan to show him the webpage open on his browser.

“Did you see this?” he asks, pointing at the screen.

Dan extends an arm to rest over Phil’s shoulders as he peeks at it. Phil has been waiting for this band to become active again for a long time, and there is no one he would rather share his excitement with than Dan.

There is no squeal of surprise or hurried words coming too loud in his ear, though. There is not as much as a huff of acknowledgement. Phil turns to look at the profile of Dan’s face. He is reading the article. As if the headline had not told him enough.

“Dan?” Phil asks, his excitement settling. “What’s the matter?”

Dan frowns, squints, leans forwards as if that will make him understand it better.

Once this method has proven to be unsuccessful, he leans back, eyeing Phil.

“I have literally never heard of this band in my life,” he announces.

There is no joking tone, or teasing smile, or held-back laughter as he says it. Dan looks just as unimpressed as he did when Phil catapulted into the living room to interrupt Dan playing video games.

“You’re serious?” Phil asks, still on the fence.

Dan quirks an eyebrow.

“Should I know them?” Dan asks. He looks back at the screen. “ _Explosions In The Sky_? Isn’t that one of those weird instrumental bands you like?”

“They’re not weird,” Phil immediately defends himself, too used to defending his own tastes to remember the topic at hand. “At least I don’t listen to Mario Kart music in my spare time.”

“That soundtrack is a bop and you know it.”

Phil rolls his eyes fondly and rests his head on Dan’s shoulder, letting himself be enveloped in his arms.

“It was one of those bands we bonded over in the beginning,” Phil explains. “I’d never talked to someone that knew of them before you.”

Phil expects for it to click for Dan then, for there to be some acknowledgement that Dan knows what he is on about, but that is not what he gets. What he gets is a moment of silence as Dan thinks hard, then a surprised laugh.

“Oh,” Dan says knowingly, grinning to himself. “It was… Huh. Alright.”

Dan fiddles with Phil’s hair almost uncomfortably as he shifts to cross one ankle over the other. Phil keeps looking at his face, waiting for a reaction that makes sense.

Dan looks down at him. Something mildly patronising yet affectionate flickers in his gaze, a secret smile like he knows something that Phil doesn’t.

“What?” Phil asks, just a bit exasperated.

“I never really liked them,” Dan admits. “You asked if I’d heard them on MSN one night and I pulled up one of their songs and then I just agreed with whatever you had to say about it.”

Phil sits up, Dan’s arm effectively shrugged off from over his shoulders, and squints.

Dan squints back, ending on a laugh.

This is not a first time that Dan has admitted to either faking or exaggerating an interest in something in order to woo Phil back in the day. The first one was a lot more confusing, but this one does make Phil feel strange all the same. He thought he had figured out all of those little white lies by now.

“How could you?” Phil asks, eyes intense but with a betraying smile.

Dan laughs.

“Never trust a stranger on the internet, Phil,” he shoots back.

“Don’t you mean ‘Snowdude’?” Phil asks, winking.

Dan giggles, an adorable smile creating deep dimples on both cheeks, and shakes his head.

“Exactly,” he says.

Phil hums, settling back against Dan’s shoulder. Dan wraps his arm back around Phil’s, a motion practiced enough to not give a second thought.

“Do you still want to go with me when they come to London?” Phil asks.

Dan hums, palm stroking across the short hairs on the back of Phil’s head.

“Yeah, why not?” he says. “Put a song on. I might appreciate them more now.”

He connects his phone to the TV, and scrolls down to his favourite album. The song starts, slow and tentative. Dan looks over his shoulder to read the album title.

“ _The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place_?” he grins. “You really thought I’d like an album with a title like that in 2009?”

Phil snorts.

“I did think it was a bit out of character,” he admits.

It wasn’t the titles alone that raised his suspicions. From what he knew of Dan at the time, Phil had created a clear image of a large and in charge character with a cute smile and an intimidating personality and pretty, bashful eyes. None of it was really true. All Phil thought at the time was that a guy like that suited listening to Muse, My Chemical Romance, and The Used. And that a guy like that must be insane for taking such an interest in a nerd like himself.

“You’re not upset about it, are you?” Dan asks after a while of not talking.

They have been listening to the songs. They are pretty long, even though the album is comprised of only of them. It is nice to listen to them while lying in Dan’s arms. It feels like more.

“No,” Phil chuckles. “‘Course not. It’s just funny to me.”

“What is?”

“The fact that you were so adamant on acting like someone you thought I might like.”

Dan huffs.

“You were doing the exact same thing.”

“I wasn’t as good at it.”

Dan frowns, his hand skating over Phil’s jaw to tilt it upwards to meet his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“It’s been ten years, Dan,” Phil smiles. “And I still thought you liked this band.”

Dan’s features soften. His eyes dart away for a moment, something soft and introspective behind them, before they take in Phil’s again.

“I do like it,” he says. “Honest. I like the sound.”

Phil half smiles. Dan doesn’t listen to music like that. He won’t have an opinion until he has been sat with his headphones on, fully immersing himself as he calls it, to then give a proper statement.

“That’s not what I mean, though,” Phil says.

Dan chuckles.

“I know,” he nods. “It’s pretty weird it hasn’t come up since.”

“I don’t always listen to them,” Phil shrugs.

Dan makes an agreeing noise.

“It really just made things take longer when we did things like that, didn’t it?” Phil asks.

Dan laughs, that patronising affection back in his eyes, as he scratches the side of Phil’s head.

“We were attached to the hip, went abroad together, and I moved to Manchester within less than a year, Phil,” he says. “I don’t think we could have taken things faster.”

Phil grins, leaning into the scratching behind his ear, and closes his eyes.

“You get what I mean, though.”

“Yeah, Phil,” Dan responds. “I get what you mean.”

Phil hums, enjoying the moment of warmth and music and smiles.

They were caricatures when they first talked. Some versions of themselves they wanted the other to like. Phil, with his naive attempt at being seductive and mysterious. Dan, hiding his nerdy fanboy nature with off the cuff jokes and observations. Phil has a hard time relating back to the person he was when he looked at Dan with big, dreamy eyes, wondering how a guy like that could humour a guy like himself. Dan isn’t some dreamy, far off person anymore. He is very real, he is very present, and there is no mystery for Phil to solve inside of him.

Phil prefers the version he finds walking around in his pants with his hand stuffed down a bag of chips. He prefers the sleepy smile on Dan’s face when Phil scrunches his face and tries to get away from morning breath kisses. He prefers the hyena like laughter at some weird meme Phil doesn’t get.

“It was worth it, though,” Dan says.

“Nothing is worth lying about,” Phil says automatically, deeply ingrained from his parents.

Dan giggles.

“This is, isn’t it?” he asks.

Phil opens his eyes. Dan leans down to kiss him.

“It is,” Phil agrees once they part.

They’re a long way from MSN now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3
> 
> [Tumblr post](https://intoapuddle.tumblr.com/post/185118371038/so-i-wrote-14k-words-of-fluff-based-off-this) | Likes & reblogs are appreciated!


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